Ex Parte Wang et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jan 17, 2018

14677988 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 17, 2018)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O.Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
14/677,988 04/03/2015 Shyh-Jye Wang 7176
7590
Shyh-Jye Wang
20 Paperbark
Irvine, CA 92620
EXAMINER
COLUCCI, MICHAEL C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2658
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/17/2018 PAPER
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SHYH-JYE WANG and CHI-PING CHUNG
Appeal 2017-007580
Application 14/677,988
Technology Center 2600
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., IRVIN E. BRANCH, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants are appealing the final rejection of claims 1—20 under
35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 4. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b) (2012).
We affirm.
Introduction
The invention is directed to “to activation of voice command
interface[s], more particularly, to a system and method of message-triggered
voice command interface^] in portable electronic devices.” Specification,
paragraph 9.
Appeal 2017-007580
Application 14/677,988
Illustrative Claim
1. A portable electronic device comprising:
a microphone;
a speaker;
a display; and
a processor configured to activate a speech recognition routine after a
message, selected from the group consisting of an e-mail, a text message and
a voice mail, has been received by the portable electronic device, wherein
the message is not generated by the portable electronic device, and wherein
the speech recognition routine comprising:
starting a first timer having a first predetermined expiration
time period,
activating a first speech recognition routine,
determining whether a predefined keyword is detected before
the first timer expires,
and
providing a voice brief corresponding to the message if the
predefined keyword is detected, wherein the detected keyword
is a password.
Rejection on Appeal
Claims 1—20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Taubkin (US Patent 5,774,858; issued June 30, 1998),
Phillips (US Patent Application Publication 2011/0066634 Al; published
March 17, 2011) and Olincy (US Patent Application Publication
2014/0057610A1; published F ebruary 27,2014). F inal Rej ection 37.
ANALYSIS
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed December 17, 2016), the Reply Brief
(April 16, 2017), the Final Rejection (mailed August 1, 2016) and the
Answer (mailed February 24, 2017) for the respective details.
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Application 14/677,988
Appellants contend, “neither Taubkin’s vehicle nor the speech
analysis system built-in the vehicle should be considered as a portable
electronic device” as recited by claim 1, because “Taubkin is directed to a
speech analysis method of protecting a vehicle from unauthorized accessing
and controlling has a mode of voice changing and a mode of changing a
protection degree. (Taubkin, Abstract.)” Appeal Brief 8.
Appellants describe Taubkin’s invention as the following:
Taubkin discloses that “[i]t is in the driving position of the
ignition key that the system is initialized (a step 403). The
system requests in a step 405: “Say your password”. The user is
encouraged to pronounce the password within a predetermined
period of time, say five seconds (a step 407). The system carries
out a verification procedure (a step 409) employing both the
linguistic structure of the password (its content) and individual
characteristics of the voice. If the verification completed
successfully, the system wishes the verified user a good trip in a
step 411 and goes to an operational position.” (Taubkin, col. 14,
lines 51-60 (emphasis added); see also FIG. 4.)
Appeal Brief 8.
Appellants also argue:
Phillips merely teaches the use of Automated Speech
Recognition (ASR) to enter text into an application, such as a
communications application, an SMS message, IM message,
email, chat, blog, or the like. Once an application is invoked, the
sent application may allow further speech input by including the
ASR client in the application. In other words, the ASR is utilized
to invoke an application to be sent out and not to be invoked
by a received application.
Appeal Brief 10.
Appellants further argue:
Olincy teaches a variety of ways of giving a command to
a system to automatically send an automatically generated
response text message in response to an incoming text message
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Application 14/677,988
or phone call. It is clear that Olincy merely teaches that it is a
“response text message” been automatically generated and
automatically sent out when a command is given to the system.
Olincy does not teach or suggest automatically generating a
voice recognition routine in response to a received message as of
the claimed invention.
Appeal Brief 12.
Appellants conclude, “[a]s discussed above, each of the three cited
references (Taubkin, Phillips and Olincy) fails to teach, or otherwise suggest
in combination, at least that a speech recognition routine is automatically1
activated by a message received by a portable electronic device.” Appeal
Brief 15.
We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive. Taubkin discloses
that automatic speech recognition routines are well known in the art:
Firstly, familiarity with passwords is checked. This
recognition mode is close to a speaker-independent one. Any
speech (word, command) recognition procedures accepted in the
Automatic Speech Recognition theory such as DTW (for
Dynamic Time Warping), HMM (for Hidden Markov Models),
or phoneme-by-phoneme recognition can be used.
Taubkin, column 10, lines 50—55.
We agree with Appellants that Taubkin’s invention is directed to
protecting a vehicle from unauthorized use (Taubkin, Abstract); however
Appellants’ invention is directed “to activation of voice command
interface^]” in portable devices wherein the activation is not dependent
upon the portability aspect of the electronic device, and therefore Taubkin’s
1 We note claim 1 does not recite the term “automatically.” In any event, we
further note “it is well settled that it is not ‘invention’ to broadly provide a
mechanical or automatic means to replace manual activity which has
accomplished the same result. In re Venner, 262 F.2d 91, 95 (CCPA 1958).
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Appeal 2017-007580
Application 14/677,988
relevancy in the matter of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness is
not negated. See Specification 9.
Appellants further argue:
Assuming arguendo, that the Office Action’s invocation of the
missing element from Phillips and Olincy for the disclosure of
ASR after SMS, email and voice mail, which it is not, the
combination of the Taubkin’s system, which relies on the
ignition key to be turned to the driving position to initialize the
system (step 403), with the use of ASR after SMS, email and
voice mail is improper. Applicants respectfully submit that such
a combination would result in a bizarre situation where
Taubkin’s subsequent steps (405, 407 and 409) are triggered by
a manual action (i.e., turning the ignition key to the driving
position) while the driver is [sic] desire to start the vehicle and it
would be awkward to have a driver wait for a SMS, email or
voice mail to come into the vehicle’s computer for turning on the
engine. The relies on the ignition key to be turned to the driving
position to initialize the system (step 403) is important to
Taubkin and the removal thereof would frustrate the purpose of
the system discussed therein.
Appeal Brief 16.
We do not find Appellants’ arguments persuasive because:
To justify combining reference teachings in support of a rejection
it is not necessary that a device shown in one reference can be
physically inserted into the device shown in the other. In re
Griver, 53 CCPA 815, 354 F.2d 377, 148 USPQ 197 (1966); In
re Billingsley, 47 CCPA 1108, 279 F.2d 689, 126 USPQ 370
(1960). The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary7 reference may be bodily incorporated into the
structure of the primary7 reference; nor is it that the claimed
invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the
references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the
references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the
art. In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032, 202 USPQ 171 (CCPA 1979);
In re Passal, 57 CCPA 1151, 426 F.2d 828, 165 USPQ 720
(1970); In re Richman, 57 CCPA 1060, 424 F.2d 1388, 165
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Appeal 2017-007580
Application 14/677,988
USPQ 509 (1970); In re Rosselet, 52 CCPA 1533, 347 F.2d 847,
146 USPQ 183 (1965),
In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981), Appellants’ proposed
combination of the cited references is not responsive to the Examiner’s
findings, and does not persuade us the Examiner erred in determining the
combined teachings of the cited references would have suggested the claim
limitations to those of ordinary skill in the art. See Answer 11—18.
We sustain the obviousness rejection of independent claims 1, 9, and
19, as well as dependent claims 2—8, 10—18, and 20 not argued separately.
See Appeal Brief 15—16.
DECISION
The Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 1—20 is sustained.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(l)(v).
AFFIRMED
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